Christo's project to wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is postponed to 2021

It has been announced that the artist Christo Javacheff's grandiose project to wrap the Arc de Triomphe in Paris is postponed from this autumn to 2021. The married duo of pioneering artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude (who died in 2009), who won worldwide fame for their art projects wrapping colossal objects and spaces, have worked in Paris before: in 1985, after nine years of negotiations, they were permitted to wrap the Pont Neuf in forty-one thousand square metres of golden fabric.

The authorities, the Centre Pompidou and Christo have decided to postpone the exhibition, which was due to open in March this year, and with it the colossal scheme to wrap the Arc de Triomphe: an art project simply loses its point if millions of people are unable to see it. I hope that next year the idea will nevertheless be realised.